


Tale of the foreign bride

by cortchuzska



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cortchuzska/pseuds/cortchuzska
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the Water Gardens, Ellaria tells tales of Martell Princes to her daughters</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tale of the foreign bride

“Once upon a time, there were a Prince and a Princess, whose kingdoms had been long at war...”

“They fall in love with each other, peace ensues, and everyone lives happily. That's an old story, mother.”

“This is not that kind of story; for she did love, but another. Yet, the Princess and the Prince had to marry, for their lands had bled sorely, and needed healing.”

\--o--

The Princess sat sullenly atop her husband's tower, looking down at the sea, her gaze wandering to where it met with the sky, thinking of her lost love and longing for her homeland.

“Why are you so sad, Princess?” He asked, for he couldn't have her displeased with him or unhappy with their marriage, lest another war befall upon lands that yearned for peace.

“I long for my far away home verdant forest.” She answered; for the Prince's kingdom was mostly forbidding deserts, bleak mountains, and dry lands.

So he had a beauteous garden set up for her. Yet the Princess was still unhappy, and sat beneath a bower, lost in wistful thoughts of her home and of her lost love.

“Does not the garden please you, Princess? Why are you sitting in gloom, and don't you wander about, enjoying its beauty?”

“Your garden is beautiful indeed,” she acknowledged, “But it's too hot for me to walk; I am pale and your blazing sun would burn me, and your dry, fiery weather doesn't agree with me.”

The Prince adorned the garden with fountain and pools, shades and canopies, and had a pavilion raised for her, where she could rest during day hottest hours.

The Princess wandered among sweet-scented trees, lulled by gurgling waters, but she could not forget her far away home, nor her lost love. The Prince saw her still sad, and asked her why.

“Your garden is beautiful and pleasant, but so lonely, and I find its emptiness gloomy. I mislike walking alone.”

“When we will have children, their laughter and frolics will make this garden a happy place.”

They had, and many, so the Prince built a marble palace in the garden for his family. But not even the sight of her own children could make the Princess happy; still she missed her home, and mourned her lost love, and the Prince was troubled by her sorrow.

“What saddens you, my Princess?”

“Our children will grow friendless and sad secluded here, without suitable companions of their age.”

The Prince added to the palace a children wing, another for their parents who would come to visit, service buildings as well and lodgings for the staff, and a turret for the maester. Then he summoned his bannermen, and invited their sons and daughters to live with his own ones.

The beautiful garden and its pools flared alive with the merriment of many children, and the Princess's and the Prince's heirs had many little friends to play with, yet not even that could mend the Princess's heart, and the longing for her lost love grew even more painful at the happiness around her.

“What would you have of me, my Princess? I won't have you so dejected.”

The Princess had a gentle heart, the day was stifling, and she asked that even the children of servants and grooms were allowed to join the others into the pools. The Prince granted once more her wish, for too seldom he had seen a smile on her lips, but the Princess's sorrow for her love, dead in a faraway land and lost to her forever, could not be soothed..

\--o--

A hush had fallen on the children gathered around her, her daughters and their little friends who had joined her while she was spinning her tale.

_As the children splashed in the pools, Daenerys watched from amongst the orange trees, and a realization came to her._

When the Prince asked her again: “How could I please you, and dispel your sadness?” , she didn't know what to answer; for what they had built together was so perfect and beautiful nothing could match it in the whole world.

In the end, love doesn't matter.


End file.
